We often call the era that ‘An Inspector Calls’ is set in Edwardian. This isn’t strictly true. The Edwardian era was the time that King Edward VII reigned, between 1901 and 1909. Mr Birling wouldn’t be sitting down for dinner for another 3 years by which time King George V was reigning. We often extend what we call the Edwardian era though until the start of World War I in 1914 because that makes a nice break with when society changed again. If we’re going to understand ‘An Inspector Calls’ we have to then understand the Edwardian era.
Walking down an Edwardian street
What will you find then if you left your house and walked through the city streets of Edwardian England? Immediately your lungs would fill with smoke. Smoke from the chimneys of industry pumping out burning coal from factories. The air would be thick and dirty. This would combine with tobacco smoke. Imported from the Caribbean and America, the Edwardians had a love affair with tobacco. You’d be thankful for this too as if the smoke wasn’t there, you’d expect to be smelling either horse manure or human excrement on the streets where you stepped. Horses were still the main method of transport and you cross this road at your peril. Things were improving since the Victorian era but in the poorer parts of town, overcrowding led to shoeless children walking barefoot through filthy streets. The idea of having your own private toilet was still a way off for families in this area of town. These children we see should now be getting a basic education. The official school leaving age was 12 and school was compulsory, but these children we see might be younger. Many left before this age as they needed to work to support their family. As you look at the faces of the people around us, we see hunger. Desperate hunger. Malnutrition was real and great men like Seebohm Rowntree calculated that the poor simply could not earn enough money to feed themselves. The starving poor were not lazy or bad with money. Rowntree proved to those who claimed this, they were simply wrong. An average salary would not be enough for food even if no luxuries were bought and everyone was fit and healthy and working. If the family had lost the main earner, usually the father, then the situation would be disastrous. Our street would likely be lined with the many women who turned to prostitution (often incredibly young) and this is something Priestley alludes to when we see the girls of the Palace Bar. With no government support, if things went wrong at home, this was often the only option for desperate women. King Edward VI himself was said to have an insatiable thirst for prostitutes – though not the ones we see standing on our street. Nicknamed ‘Dirty Bertie’ and ‘Edward the Caresser’, he travelled to Paris regularly and it was said that Britain and France’s growing friendship was in part due to Edward’s love of French prostitutes. The view of Edwardian Britain from our street might give an impression of total desperation but where there was great poverty, as the free travelling life of Edward suggests, there was also great wealth.
The other side of town
We can board a steam train, the only real way of long distance travel, and take our minds away from the upsetting sights of our street and into the clean, crisp air of the countryside. This is where the upper-classes of Edwardian Britain lived in their mansions. In the distance we hear the gunshots of their favourite sport, hunting. We hear the roar of the motorcar. Still a status symbol for the rich who enjoyed ignoring the 20mph speed limit across England. Once parked it would remain at the front of the house for all to see as it was polished by one of the many servants working here. More people worked in domestic service in Edwardian England than worked in industry. That is, more people worked as cooks, servants, game keepers and cleaners to the rich than were even working in factories. This shows us the massive difference between the rich and the poor in Edwardian England. The fact that Birling only seemed to have Edna and a cook shows that he was nowhere near the top of society in Edwardian Britain. One stately home, nothing particularly special by Edwardian standards, had 102 rooms and in 1912 its owner employed nearly 100 servants. It’s said the curtains alone (bought from Paris) cost over one million pounds in today’s value of money. The highest paid housemade by comparison might expect to earn £2,500 a year (also adjusted for today’s value!) whilst working 18-hour days. Servants would have had their accommodation supplied, but it would be considerably worse that the extravagant stables that the prized race horses would have lived in. Servants would ensure that our upper-class family never had to worry as they did everything from laying out their clothes in the morning to serving vintage champagne and the finest cigars late into the evening. The divide between these two worlds of our smoke choked street and the lavish lifestyle of the upper-class country mansion seems unimaginable.
A strict class divide
Today we still judge those around us by how they look. We might take a guess at what kind of lifestyle they live but it is nothing compared to the clear and strict dividing lines of Edwardian class appearance. Respectable women would never leave the house without hat and gloves even on the warmest of days. To wear a coloured tie as a gentleman with your morning coat would mean instant ridicule. A different suit would be worn for morning, daytime and evening. Young boys would have tailored suits in the same style as their fathers. There would be written guides for women on how to dress for every occasion: for the time of the day; for shopping; for visiting friends; for sailing on your yacht; for church; for shooting; or for the seaside and many more locations. No wonder dress shopping for Sheila was such a painful experience. As the working-classes struggled to afford the textiles they created in overcrowded, hot factories, the upper-classes held a strict dress code that was designed to set them apart. On the whole though, this divide was seen as entirely natural and something that should always exist. There was little chance to escape your working-class background and there was also little chance to change the system. Any men living on our first street would still not be allowed to vote until 1918, only wealthy men with land had a vote. Most men fighting in World War One could not vote for the government that sent them there. It was this war however, that began to break down this enormous class divide by the time Priestley wrote the play. It was a society and a mentality that Priestley wanted us never to return to.